I’m leading the Review of Modern Employment for UK Government and I am determined that the Review will be bold and offer a comprehensive strategy for a better work future.
I decided early on that tackling exploitation, confusion and perverse incentives in work would only be likely if we all care as much about the quality of employment as about its quantity.
Good work is something the RSA cares about deeply.
We need a good work economy because
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Most people in poverty are already in work.
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Bad work is bad for people’s health and wellbeing
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Bad work is more likely to be low productivity work and thus bad for the economy
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Automation will impact the future of work
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Bad work – with no choice or voice for workers – just feels wrong in 2017
But if good work for all is to become a reality, I need to show that there is strong support in civil society and the wider public for this goal.
The RSA wants you to talk about what good work means to you.
We have a few weeks to persuade whoever wins the next election that good work matters.
Post a video on Facebook or Twitter using #GoodWorkIs to tell us what good work means for you
Or comment below to share your conversation about good work
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Good work, like many things, follows a Maslow type structure. Basic requirements must be fulfilled for work to even begin to be 'good', such as working conditions, tolerable hours, a liveable wage. There then comes a level of respect between employee and employer and the other stakeholders the employee engages with. Once these requirements are met, higher-level, but nonetheless necessary, conditions come into play - such as purpose and autonomy (this will vary depending on the job - but being treated like an adult is a good start).
It should also be remembered that work for plenty of people is a means to an end, a necessary activity to allow them to do other things that carry more meaning for them. That does not mean that working conditions/pay/respect etc can be forfeited, but it may mean they carry less value (people will be prepared to put up with worse levels of them) as they get their purpose and fulfilment elsewhere.
Different strokes for different folks and balancing personal wants with community needs is not easy so it's good to see research on this diverse topic
Stephen Coveys 7 Habits of Highly Successful People are a good place to start
Hi Matthew
I am hoping you are aware of the concern your review has generated across the self employed and contract worker sector. Principally that offering unemployment benefit will be used to justify a swinging tax increase (or NI) and loss of ability to claim expenses in the name of 'fairness'. There are a group of people that exist between the privations of the zero hours, gig economy and the consistency of permanent full time employee. Project workers tasked with one-off, short term (well paid) work fill a role in the economy that cannot be replaced by permanent staff,without recourse to vastly more expensive corporate body shoppers. Similarly skilled self employed people moving from small job to small job need to be able to justify the uncertainty of income by being able to arrange their affairs as a business. If you treat all work as the same all income as wages and all small business people as 'disguised employment', you will reduce economic activity, delay and exacerbate the cost of projects of all sizes and reduce the life chances and pathways to a better future for a raft of people that have developed a sale-able skill, I find the recourse to a hashtag soundbite fatuous and concerning. I hope you have not been convinced by those who wish to end self employment and the offer to exchange business income with welfare benefits is not something I expected from the RSA. I look forward to your findings,
BT
...is different for everyone but should be adapted to fit an individual's abilities, aspirations and circumstances.
Good work depends on good managers and this is the resource most absent in UK businesses (and probably elsewhere also).
While our business schools teach the theories and techniques of managing business, they fail to teach the management of people - perhaps because it depends to a great extent on abstract personal qualities such as integrity, perceptiveness, commitment and experience.
Poor managers promote and hire more poor managers and then by default(i.e. their own failure to manage) organisations create inadequate work situations where good staff can be deterred by lack of recognition and/or opportunity, while seeing the wrong people apparently ‘getting on’.
In all management the fault for failure lies at the top and it is failures by those leading our orgnisations that allow subsequent levels of management to continue with poor management practices with weaknesses of various kinds ‘cascading’ down through the organisation. This results in problems at the ‘coal face’ that tend to create the absence of the ‘good work’ that the RSA is seeking to achieve.
While aspects such as legislation, taxation, participation and staff involvement can all influence what makes ‘good work’, the real determinant is management and so long as the top leaders are driven by personal gain (vis. C-suite pay levels), short termism and inadequate regard for the long term good of the organisation,‘good work’ will remain an unattainable goal for a great many.